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Mountain Bike Blog

 

 

Keeping Busy - Chains, wheels, cassettes and very sore hands

 9/2/2013

In November my hub "shat itself" - the words of my LBS.  Thankfully it was a warranty repair but it dawned on me that with my weight and the type of riding I do a $30 hub will no last long.  So I bit the bullet and bought a Hope Pro 2 Evo on a No Tubes Flow EX rim before Christmas, and I love it.

The plan was to setup the original DT Swiss E540 Rim and Shimano Hub as my commuting wheel with a low resistance tyre for better road wear. 

Last week I finally received all the pieces I needed to complete my wheel upgrade .. work began yesterday.

Yesterday:
The first issue came trying to remove the cassette from the hub.  That baby was stuck on there good and took some work with a rubber mallet to get free.  I shot a photo off to Hope to find out what I had done wrong to cause this.

The boy and I then sat out on the street and started to degrease the cassette and both our chains.  Wow wasn't that one of the most boring things I've ever done, however now I have some very shiny mech and some VERY SORE HANDS. 

Here's a trick .. wear gloves when using degreaser.  That stuff does a really good job of removing grease from metal, I never considered what it was doing to my hands.  I spent last night rubbing sorbolene, lanoline and pain reducing stuff into my hands.  They felt like they were about to turn to dust, not to mention all the nicks in my hands that even today feel like acid is burning its way through.  Important lesson learned.

I mounted the new cassette and brake rotor to my primary wheel (No Tubes/Hope) while the old cassette and rotor went onto my spare wheel (DT Swiss/Shimano). 

My spare wheel was already sporting some high tech tyres that came off my Big W bike :) I remember agonising over which way the tyre should go, in fact I'm sure I took it off and put it back on more than once.  Well the sad thing is it's definitely rotating the wrong way now, so refitting the tyre is on the program today.

Next on the list however is to lube up my son and my chains .. oh I bought a new chain .. I almost forgot! I better go get that.

With the drive chain all sorted my attention will go towards a brake pad inspection and possible change.  From the outside they look ok but there is definitely something not right, however one of the positive things about having noisy brakes is they encourage you to get off them and that really helped me out at OMV yesterday.

I guess I should get off the computer and start work - I think I need some caffeine first tho'.

 

Trail Centres and Trails featured in this blog

 

Comments:

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